It Happens Here, Too: Sexual Harassment in the Schools

A female high-school student believes she has been sexually harassed
by the school's band director, who, besides touching her during
practice sessions at school, has hinted at his interest in having sex
with her when the band plays at school-sponsored musical events away
from school. At first she complains to the high school's principal, who
responds by telling her it is her word against the band director's.
Furthermore, he tells her, the band director has always received
excellent evaluations. The young woman decides to file a lawsuit.

A young woman in the 8th grade, one of the few females in an
auto-mechanics course, is subjected to dirty, sexist jokes by
classmates. The teacher never intervenes, even though he seems to
overhear some of the banter. The other girls in the class seem
oblivious or unaffected by the jokes, but this one young woman can't
block out the jokes, or the stares; she feels generally uncomfortable.
Although she tries to stay focused on her projects, she finds it hard
to pay attention, and soon the quality of her work declines. She
receives a less than satisfactory grade in the first marking period and
is advised to drop the course... which she does.

Scenarios such as these are sadly frequent in school life, yet are
startlingly absent from the literature on education, and from the
recent national discourse on sexual harassment. Assuming that one is
able to identify these descriptions as "child sexual abuse," or "sexual
harassment," one would have great difficulty finding published
literature on the existence of these problems and strategies for coping
with them in elementary and secondary schools.

Sexual harassment in the schools does not look the same (albeit with
younger actors) as it does in higher education. With subjects age 12
and older, harassment is all too often dismissed as "typical adolescent
behavior," and misconstrued as a normal rite of passage, as awkward
"getting-to-know-you" behaviors. It is trivialized, condoned, or
described as "flirting' or "initiation rites."

Sexual harassment occurs in the mundane, daily matters of school
life:in the corridors and stairwells; in the cafeteria; in the
chemistry lab as well as in the carpentry shop; in the gym and the
parking lot; on school buses; in the driver's-education car; and on the
practice fields of extracurricular sports. This is apparent, even
though only a few surveys on sexual harassment in high schools have
been completed. The first, conducted in 1980 by the Massachusetts
Department of Education with assistance from the now-defunct
organization Alliance Against Sexual Coercion, questioned approximately
200 male and female students from across the state. In-depth interviews
also were completed between 1979 and 1982 with young women enrolled in
courses previously considered nontraditional for their sex (auto
mechanics, plant maintenance, plumbing and air conditioning, metal
fabrication, and so forth).

In addition to validating that harassment does in fact occur in
these settings, the research revealed the following trends:

Young
women are much more likely to be victims of sexual harassment,
especially in the more severe forms of unwanted physical attention,
than their male counterparts.

Sexual harassment is a problem for many
students in high school, in both vocational high schools and
comprehensive schools. It is not the case that harassment occurs only
when young women are in the minority, as they often are in vocational
schools or in courses that have been previously considered sex-role
nontraditional. Sexual harassment is a typical part of the fabric of
daily life in schools where young women make up 50 percent of the
school population.

Student-to- student sexual harassment is more
prevalent than teacher-to- student.

Peer-to-peer sexual harassment
ranged from verbal and written comments to physical assault and
attempted rape.

Sexual harassment on the job is not unfamiliar to
high-school students, whether the jobs are part of the school
curriculum, as in "co-op" jobs supervised by school personnel, or are
acquired independently by students, outside the school.

These and other attempts to collect data have shown that sexual
harassment has an adverse impact on teaching and learning--in the
classroom and outside it. Students who have experienced harassment
report an array of consequences. Among the direct effects cited are
feelings of embarrassment, fear of retaliation, anger, powerlessness,
loss of self-confidence, and cynicism about education and teachers.
Students also identify physical symptoms, including insomnia and
listlessness, and report a reduced ability to perform schoolwork,
excessive absenteeism, or frequent tardiness. Many also indicate that
sexual harrassment led them to transfer from particular courses or
majors, and, in some cases, to withdraw from school. Such consequences
clearly constitute a denial of equal educational opportunity and the
presence of a "hostile environment."

More subtle experiences of harassment produce less tangible results.
Students who feel betrayed, discredited, or compromised by peers, and
unsupported by school staff, seem less trusting of people in general,
and less enthusiastic about pursuing their education. Victims/subjects
of sexual harassment, as well as the bystanders and witnesses to such
incidents, express a loss of confidence in the effectiveness of school
policies. In fact, positive feelings and beliefs about justice and
caring may be in jeopardy if such a "poisoned environment" is allowed
to exist through the tolerance of sexual harassment. In our chapter
from the forthcoming book Sexuality and the Curriculum ("Bitter Lessons
for All: Sexual Harassment in the Schools"), my coauthors Eleanor Linn,
Jackie Young, Sandra Davis, and I explain that such a loss of
community, let alone the hope for a just and caring community, may have
a greater impact upon young women than young men, whether or not these
young women are themselves the victims of sexual harassment.

A more recent survey was conducted in 1986 in Minnesota with male
and female juniors and seniors, ages 16 to 18, enrolled in a
predominantly white, middle-class secondary vocational center. The
results of that study, published in the March 1988 issue of the NASSP
Bulletin, show that 33 percent to 60 percent of the 133 females
responding reported experiencing some form of sexual harassment, while
only 1 of the 130 males questioned said he had been the victim of
sexual harassment. Additional data were obtained at a Minnesota State
Sex-Equity Student Leadership Conference, held in May of 1986. Eighty
percent of the participants indicated that they were aware of incidents
of sexual harassment in their schools.

Although sexual harassment is a widely researched phenomenon in
higher education, in elementary and secondary schools it remains
largely unexplored and, when investigated, usually denied. But there,
too, it is against the law and is a form of sex discrimination, a
violation of the federal statutes Title IX and Title VII. It may also
violate state criminal and civil statutes. And some forms of sexual
harassment may be actionable as child abuse, sexual assault, rape,
pornography, criminal or civil libel, slander, or defamation of
character. Victims, as well as educators or community members acting on
the victim's behalf, may file sexual-harassment complaints.

Recently, a new avenue for the adjudication of cases involving the
sexual harassment/child abuse of minors by school personnel was created
in a precedent-setting case heard before the U.S. Court of Appeals for
the Third Circuit. In that case, Stoneking v. Bradford Area (Pa.)
School District, the court held that public-school officials had
violated a student's 14th Amendment right to "liberty" when they failed
to protect her from sexual abuse by school employees. The decision
paved the way for the former highschool student to sue a Pennsylvania
school district and individual school officials for negligent super-
vision of a band director who had sexually assaulted her during
school-sponsored events and trips, and sometimes on school
property.

Next month, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear a Title IX
sexual-harassment case involving a female high-school student who said
she was sexually harassed by a teacher/coach. This case, Christine
Franklin v. Gwinnett County (Ga.) Public Schools, will examine whether
compensatory damages are available in such cases. Much is at stake with
this case, not the least of which is the perceived or real weight of
Title IX as an avenue for redress for sexual harassment.

In the aftermath of the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings on
allegations of sexual harassment in the workplace, and in the season of
the Franklin case, we need to acknowledge that sexual harassment exists
in elementary and secondary schools also. We need to provoke a national
awareness of this problem, which might offer solutions to the
all-too-typical scenarios that began this Commentary. Among the
solutions that might apply in such cases are the following:

Remediating sexual-harassment incidents before they escalate with
the use of non-litigious remedies.

Training current and future teachers and administrators to be
aware of the existence and the manifestations of this problem in
schools, and delineating their responsibilities to intervene.

Disentangling the jurisdictional confusion about which state
agencies have authority over complaints when they arise in schools,
and then publicizing those lines of authority to the public and to
students.

Puncturing the conspiracy of silence among superintendents who
force an employee to resign because of alleged sexual misconduct, yet
fail to inform subsequent employers of the incidents that led to
their actions (a syndrome known as the "mobile molester.")

Designing models for public policy, procedures, and regulations
to ensure that children who experience sexual abuse and sexual
harassment in school settings are heard and protected.

Our neglect and denial can no longer be allowed to silence these
victims. It is time to recognize that sexual harassment, a pervasive,
pernicious problem, is an obstacle to receiving equal educational
opportunity, and that, in order to achieve real justice for all, we
must take action to prevent and eliminate it.

The following materials and reports on sexual harassment are available
from the Massachusetts Department of Education, 1385 Hancock St.,
Quincy, Mass. 02169-5183: . Who's Hurt and Who's Liable: Sexual
Harassment in Massachusetts Schools: A Curriculum and Guide for School
Personnel (1986). Contact the Bureau of Equity and Language Services. .
No Laughing Matter: High School Students and Sexual Harassment (1982),
a 25-minute VHS videotape. Contact the Bureau of Educational
Technologies.

Nan Stein was a sex-equity/civil-rights specialist for the
Massachusetts Department of Education from 1978 to 1989, during which
time she developed materials on sexual harassment in schools. She now
works in the office of the associate commissioner for educational
personnel. This article represents her own opinions and is not an
endorsement by the Massachusetts Department of Education.

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